Gay and lesbian college groups announced plans for activities celebrating Gay and Lesbian Awakening Day (GLAD) during a press conference yesterday at Taipei's National Taiwan University (NTU).
This is the ninth year of GLAD, which was begun in 1994 by NTU gay and lesbian social groups Lambda and GayChat. Although GLAD began as a day of recognition held on June 1, it has evolved into a series of social awareness and recognition events held over the course of each May and June at various universities throughout northern Taiwan, GayChat representatives said.
PHOTO: LO PEI-TE, TAIPEI TIMES
This year's GLAD is sponsored by thirteen homosexual social and educational college groups.
"We used the acronym GLAD because the meaning of `glad' reflects our attitude in planning this event. Through these events, we hope to provoke others to consider their definitions of identity," said Chang Hsiao-hung (
Gay and lesbian acceptance in Taiwan is limited, students said.
"In places like the United States and northern Europe, gays and lesbians are able to be much more open than in Taiwan," said Kao Yi-chao (
"2003 and 2004 has been a period of time when many events have hurt the gay and lesbian community," Kao said, referring to instances such as this January's police raid on a homosexual party in Taipei and the confiscation of gay magazines from the bookshop Gin Gin's (
"We want to let the public know about our rights as homosexuals and increase discussion," he said.
The students also called on the government to push through the protection of human rights basic law (
The act allows gays and lesbians to organize families and adopt children. It is still under discussion in the Legislative Yuan.
This year's GLAD events include a mini-film festival featuring the 2003 Hong Kong film Let's Love, the German movie The Einstein of Sex, 2001's Corner's, new movie Splendid Float by local director Zero Chou (周美玲), and Canadian movie Better than Chocolate.
Other events include a discussion forum, literary and artistic expression competition and a dance.
To learn more about GLAD, see its Chinese Web site at http://home.kimo.com.tw/glad9th or e-mail ewgun@pchome.com.tw.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the